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A review by netflix_and_lil
Learwife by J.R. Thorp
2.0
Write 100 times on the blackboard: I can acknowledge something is well written without enjoying it in the slightest.
A book in which very little happens in a singular location to a woman who I didn't care for, with occasional bursts of prose so profoundly beautiful that I felt like I would be doing a disservice to myself by dnf-ing it. Literature that is Shakespeare inspired often gets a hallpass by association but my god, Lear's wife was exasperating. I've written enough essays about the forgotten women of Shakespeare's canon that this should have been a hit, but I just found myself wanting Goneril and Regan's story about their callous and manipulative mother warping them into villains, not this self-righteous woman reminiscing about pitting her daughters against her husband and feeling noble about hiding her daughter sexual assault in fear of her tarnishing herself for future men. But of course she's the wronged party, because despite all the shit she pulled with her own family, people say mean things about her sometimes and she doesn't know why she's in exile.
She's not a powerful woman, she's a narc who hates women and gets to morph the story how she likes because everyone that could have contradicted her is dead. Maybe that's the point, but it didn't make it any more pleasant to read. If I was her daughter I'd have gotten her banished too.
A book in which very little happens in a singular location to a woman who I didn't care for, with occasional bursts of prose so profoundly beautiful that I felt like I would be doing a disservice to myself by dnf-ing it. Literature that is Shakespeare inspired often gets a hallpass by association but my god, Lear's wife was exasperating. I've written enough essays about the forgotten women of Shakespeare's canon that this should have been a hit, but I just found myself wanting Goneril and Regan's story about their callous and manipulative mother warping them into villains, not this self-righteous woman reminiscing about pitting her daughters against her husband and feeling noble about hiding her daughter sexual assault in fear of her tarnishing herself for future men. But of course she's the wronged party, because despite all the shit she pulled with her own family, people say mean things about her sometimes and she doesn't know why she's in exile.
She's not a powerful woman, she's a narc who hates women and gets to morph the story how she likes because everyone that could have contradicted her is dead. Maybe that's the point, but it didn't make it any more pleasant to read. If I was her daughter I'd have gotten her banished too.